Gradoom

Dear all, thanks for reading. To clarify - I have not switched advsiors - but I have thought about it before. I spent my last tow years getting my MS, in a advisor-advisee relationship that was far from ideal. My advisor (OA) was almost to retire, had a big name but only a post doc, me and two other MS students. Once he did not answer my emails for 60 days. Fortunately I was externally funded. I seriously considered switching advisors, or maybe even departments after the first year, but program director and other professors (let s call him OP) talked me into staying. In retroperspective I do not think they should have, this is now time I could have already invested into my PhD studies. During my MS degree I applied for grad school again, all in all very stressy when writing a thesis. I never really had the time to speak to all prospective advisors in a depth I really wanted too. Also I am international, that certainly adds to the pressure. I agreed to work with my new advisor (NA), who is a little bit outside my field but still in reach research wise, after he agreed on me being coadviced by professor OP I wanted to work with, too. I am working projects for both, but my new advisor wants me to do things far from my focus, absolutely outside my field of interest and expertise. He knows my background and knows that I love to look at the fundamental physics of a problem but wants me to be really transitional/application based - in an extend that fundamental are not covered at all anymore. I really wonder why he picked me and his other students tell me the horror stories (he likes to micro manage). Now I am sitting here, unable to focus on my work, because it is for sure not the thing I want to do the next 4 years and ever after. Have you ever been in a similar situation, and how did you get out. It seems as I too picky or bad in choosing my advisors (even though I had not much say in the choice of my first OA). Any good ways to get out without too big waves?

They had some additional funding left over from my year and I reapplied (LOI, LOR and all that again) for it and got additional funding. This part was only for Masters students. I do not think you can extend it more or get it for several cities or something like this. Also I hope you noticed that I am a grantee in the US.

well this sounds reasonable. I am however not sure if it works this way. When I took the GRE two years ago I thought it to be so incredibly random, of no real use to evaluate any grad school performance (beside spending a long useless time to perform well in a standardized test) . Being an international student for sure did not help my verbal and analytical score much, especially as I was not willing to study vocabulary I would never use again in my life. I would not worry super much about 40 years old grades (they are neither comparable to the ones people get today in course content nor level - just think of grade inflation, nor do they reflect your intellect after this 'long' time). In my opinion your best shoot is to whoa them with your independent research and LOR/LOI (as well as good Masters grade if I read correctly you are attending a programme). Good luck, I do not think it is bad to try to follow your dreams - if you would not try you woud have lost already.

well, first I am curious where you studied abroad - a "C"(70%) in Germany in not nec. a bad grade. I do not think It will damage you a lot - as they can easily put it down for being not reflective of your total school performance. However, me being the opposite (I studied abroad in the US during UG, and now in grad school here) it was much more important. Some applications even force me to convert my grades not matter if it made sense or not. And naturally as they knew how to interpret US grades, they were a lot more important for me than the foreign ones will be for you. Still good grades always look better, so I would adress it in the LOI - input of cultural differences etc... extracurricular activities - grades are not everything.

I would follow up once too. But do not expect to much. A professor once told me that he gets a few of these every day and does not even bother to look into them. Even if they are on the same school they might not bother to answer (happened to me a couple of times). At the end there are some professors who absolutely follow up everything and the ones who decide to contact once they have been given your application by the committee. I prefer the first kind as I expect them to be similar in style as an advisor too.

why did you take the GRE again after the first time? I mean anybody who took that test knows that it is a piece of c****. I would rather spent time on shaping the rest of my application to perfection and improve on publications/research - as this at the end is what gets you funding.

good luck guys! I am a German Fulbright grantee (2009-2011) and really glad that such a great program exists

7 PhD programs - 5 schools - really hard to guess how many I can get into as my Master's admission was a special case itself. Also being an international student does not help me to predict. I had some good talks on my school , but I have not written to any other professors of these programs. Did you write to prospective advisors in all programs you are applying?

Haha, yeah I noticed that too. I found it especially annoying because I think that my research and what I want to do is so interconnected with why I want to continue grad school. Also some schools clearly say they want it to be double spaced, some dont. Some schools even wanted 3-4 pages statements - seriously I doubt that the admission committee will read 3-4 pages thoroughly. (esp. in Engineering) well I saw this AFTER I requested my transcripts to be sent to JHU. I hope it works without it - but I uploaded most my unofficial transcripts anyways. To make unofficial ones count is a good development and saves money and work.

a Virginia Tech application deadline of 31.12 with the grad secretary on vacation from 20.12-4.1. I did not even get a confirmation or anything. I am already a grad student and with research and all I turn it in close to the deadlines...also the VT applications do not allow to send out recommendation letter requests till they are submitted.

She should be able to submit it with a school letterhead as a professor emeritus? After 19 years she should have been at least associate if not full professor. wiki says: sometimes these recommendation submission forms do allow a text box entry, you would not need a letter head then.